Chemical Sciences

A New Adventure for Two Founding Faculty Chemists: Retirement

August 18, 2025

Anne and David Kelley, third and fourth from left, with a group of graduate students.

Starting a university from scratch isn’t for the faint of heart — or the slow of foot. Lucky for UC Merced, Anne Myers Kelley and David Kelley are neither. Anne, a former Olympic marathon trials qualifier, and David, a competitive cyclist, were no strangers to long, grueling efforts...

Computational Chemist Improving Modeling for Complex Processes

Professor Hrant Hratchian, with the Department of Chemistry & Chemical Biology in the School of Natural Sciences, has received a National Science Foundation CAREER award, the 24th recipient...

Graduate student Warren Nanney was awarded a three-year NASA fellowship to continue his research engineering portable biosensors for health monitoring in space.

NASA Fellowship Lifts Grad Student’s Cardiac Biosensor Research

Warren Nanney, who’s pursuing a Ph.D. in Chemistry and Chemical Biology, received a three-year NASA fellowship that’s creating a unique opportunity for him to develop biosensors that...

Six graduate students landed spots at Idaho National Laboratory through the National GEM Consortium (From left: Jordan Galloway, Denise Owusu, Stephanie Jones, Diana Perales, Terrence Buck (program manager), Malik Hayes, Jorge Ramirez.) Photo courtesy of Idaho National Laboratory.

Graduate Student Spends Summer as GEM Fellow at Idaho National Lab

As a graduate student at UC Merced, Jordan Galloway looks for ways to push himself forward and lead by example. The third-year Chemistry and Chemical Biology student forged a new path...

New Consortium Seeks to Expose Students to a Galaxy of Opportunities

Imagine exploring the cores of stars to understand — and ultimately control — the type of fusion that’s taking place. High-energy density (HED) science is the study of properties...

CAREER Award Will Help Professor Advance Organic Chemistry Education

Chemistry and chemical biology Professor Ryan Baxter recently became the campus’s 22nd recipient of the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) prestigious early CAREER awards for untenured...

Two students in white lab coats work in a chemistry lab.

$1.5M Grant Will Transform Chemistry Curriculum, Improve Access to STEM Careers

It’s a startling statistic: Nearly 30 percent of UC Merced students who start their college careers in the School of Natural Sciences (SNS) switch to majors outside the science, technology,...

Graduate programs in the natural sciences are among the many UC Merced graduate programs included in the newest U.S. News rankings of Best Graduate Schools.

Grad Programs Make U.S. News Rankings Debut

For the first time, UC Merced’s doctoral programs in the sciences have been ranked among the best in the nation, according to U.S. News & World Report’s 2019 edition of Best Graduate...

Five Students Score Big at SACNAS Conference

Five UC Merced students brought home awards for their research at this year’s Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) Diversity in STEM conference...

A man holds a bright purple instrument in his hands while talking into a microphone headset.

‘Genius’ Award Winner and TED Lecturer to Speak at UC Merced

On Sept. 22, MacArthur "Genius" Award winner and Stanford University bioengineering Professor Manu Prakash will deliver the keynote lecture at the first annual open house for UC Merced...